Physician and TB patient Edward Trudeau was convinced the clean mountain air was like medicine for the lungs. Discover the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst who helped bring down gangsters and break up a Nazi spy ring in South America. Her work helped lay the foundation for modern codebreaking today.
Explore the life of singer Marian Anderson and her triumphant concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Class Two, bathroom privileges only. Three, I could walk around a lot. By the time I got to Two, I was restless. I got yelled at by my doctor because I would be ripping up and down the hallway.
And he said, "Young lady aren't you in class Two? You're supposed to just have bathroom privileges. Go back to your bed. Narrator : For Trudeau, where his patients rested was as significant as how long. He was convinced that fresh air was the single most important treatment for a diseased lung. He instructed his patients to lie outdoors on reclining chairs, day and night, regardless of the weather. Sherwood Davies : I'd sleep at night on the porch, get fresh air.
That's what they called it. When it was below it was a little more than fresh air. Damn cold weather. But I would have an electric blanket and I'd have about four or five other blankets over the electric blanket, and then a rubber sheet over that. And then a wool cap over my ears.
And the thing that I still remember was the sunlight bouncing off Mount Marcy and then streaming in through these windows and making it just very cheerful and hopeful. And make you begin to think, "Gee, it'd be nice to be out there. Narrator : With no treatment available other than rest and fresh air, tuberculosis sufferers everywhere strived to imitate Trudeau's method. Across the country people added porches to their homes.
When that wasn't possible, they simply made do. Andrea Barrett, Writer : There were tents on the roofs of some tenement buildings all over Brooklyn. A cure chair inside and someone wrapped in all their hats and clothes. And then there were also tents that could be inserted into a window. So that if you were in your apartment house, your legs would be inside the house and the white tent would stick out the window and somehow the fresh air was supposed to come into you, just from your head sticking out the window.
Narrator : For all they had surrendered when they entered the sanatorium, patients also found a certain freedom. Unburdened from the fear of infecting others, they sought comfort in each other's company. Sheila Rothman, Historian : In these situations there was a great deal of gossip. Everybody gossiped about everybody else. Who's talking to who, who's trying to run away and drink, who left, and also, who died.
Andrea Barrett, Writer : Even if you're out on the porch and it's a sunny day and you're having conversation with a friend, or flirting with someone, just a few beds or a few rooms away someone else is coughing horribly or having a horrible hemorrhage that's being cleaned up within your sight, or a body's being taken down the corridor on a gurney. I think the presence of death had to be with you virtually every minute of every day. Sherwood Davies : I remember two young ladies, very personable, and I was in my teenage years, and these were attractive young girls and I got to know them.
Ruth Templeton and Mary Patterson. And, within four to six months of their arrival, both of them had died which, it troubled me to no end. Two young ladies like that that developed the disease. I still remember their names to this day. It's… it was very unfortunate. Narrator : Trudeau's own studies revealed that only a third of his patients got well. He stood by the bedside of hundreds of dying patients, but the hardest death to bear was that of his own daughter.
Charlotte died of tuberculosis at the age of The doctor was rarely free of symptoms himself, frequently having to stop work to take the rest cure. When Edward Trudeau died in after a year struggle with tuberculosis, a miracle cure was still a dream. Newsreel Announcer archival : Through mass production methods, America is continually increasing its output of penicillin, the new drug that affects almost miraculous cures. The liquid charged with penicillin is poured from the bottles, turned into a powder, it is ready for use.
Narrator : In the early 's the discovery of penicillin revolutionized the treatment of infectious diseases. Derived from a mold, the first antibiotic cured a host of infections -- but not tuberculosis. A microbiologist at Rutgers University believed he knew where to look for an antibiotic that would -- literally beneath people's feet. Selman Waksman was one of the few people in the country who understood the true nature of soil.
Early in his career, he had written a definitive work on the microscopic organisms that live in the ground -- describing the earth in an ordinary garden as a killing field where warrior microbes fight each other for supremacy. His previous work pointed to the Streptomyces: strange organisms, half bacteria and half fungi -- responsible for the sweet odor of earth after a light rain.
But there are over different species. Finding one that could kill harmful bacteria without toxic side effects would prove to be extraordinarily difficult.
Peter Pringle, Writer : It was unbelievably time consuming, and if you like boring, and you could look all day long and see absolutely nothing happening through your microscope. So you go to a different soil patch, maybe you go closer to the horse's stables because the bacteria that you really want are those which feed on horse dung rather than dried leaves. So it's a huge hit and miss affair. Narrator : In late summer , Waksman assigned the research project to Albert Schatz, an energetic year-old graduate student.
The hunt for antibiotics captured Schatz's imagination. He would often spend hours a day peering into his microscope looking for the telltale sign of an antibiotic.
In what was known as "the streak test," Schatz placed common bacteria in a petri dish, swiping a strain of Streptomyces down the middle.
If the strain were potent enough, it would create a dead zone around it. Peter Pringle, Writer : It's a battlefield, and the clear zone gets bigger and bigger and eventually, you're watching it destroy your harmful bacteria and you say, "Whoopee, I've got something!
Narrator : Three months in, Schatz stumbled on a variety that appeared quite powerful. On October 19th, he sealed a test tube containing the promising batch and gave it to his mother as a memento of his achievement. Schatz was eager to test the new antibiotic against tuberculosis, even given the risk.
Vivian Schatz, Wife : That laboratory was not set up for a dangerous germ like tuberculosis. So there were a couple of basement windows, and some stools to sit on, and that was it. It was very sparse. And not what you would expect where people would be working with a very virulent organism. Peter Pringle, Writer : And the equipment is very primitive. It's not exactly clean. There was none of the stuff that you see today of, you know, enclosed labs where people are manipulating their Petri dishes with mechanical arms.
It was nothing like that. Vivian Schatz, Wife : He slept in the laboratory because he had to add fluid to the glass containers that were being distilled, and when the liquid in a container got to a certain level he had to add more liquid.
So it was very, very, tiring, hard work. Narrator : Within weeks, Schatz would witness one of most dramatic events ever seen under a microscope -- the destruction of the tubercle bacillus. Waksman and Schatz named the antibiotic, Streptomycin. The following spring, Waksman sent the drug to the Mayo Clinic for testing with patients.
Starting in November of , researchers gave five courses of streptomycin to a year-old woman dying of tuberculosis. Within days, the infection in her lungs began to disappear. A few months later, she was discharged from the hospital. Nancy Tomes, Historian : So with Streptomycin, for the first time in human history, there's a magic bullet.
There's a drug you can give to people that is going to make the majority of them far, far better. You can cure tuberculosis. Sheila Rothman, Historian : I mean it was unbelievable. A disease that had plagued humanity for 3, years was suddenly able to be cured.
Sherwood Davies : The Medical Director assembled all the patients and all the staff and announced this drug that they had just discovered. And what a reaction from the patients there. I mean, you could see the smiles on their face. Well, it was indescribable. Narrator : The euphoria would not last. Within months of treatment, many patients began to relapse. Scientists would come to understand that Streptomycin does not destroy all the bacteria in the body, and the organisms that do survive grow stronger and more resistant to the drug.
Andrea Cooper, Immunologist : Suddenly the drug was not being effective when it had been so effective so quickly. And so they understood very rapidly that it was the resistance was occurring.
And so they needed to develop further drugs. Narrator : By the late s, two additional drugs were added to Streptomycin. The drug cocktail, properly administered, was far more effective. Andrea Cooper, Immunologist : And with tuberculosis, it's clear. You need a combination of drugs. So the bacteria has to combat two or three attacks at once rather than a simple one attack.
It can cope with one, it can't cope with two, and it can't cope even less well with three. And then when we take the antibiotics, we need to take them consistently, correctly, not over do it, and not under do it because then you will facilitate the development of drug resistance.
Narrator : Before antibiotics, half of all people with active TB could expect to die within five years. By , most were getting well and going on to live normal, healthy lives. As cures mounted, the sanatoriums began to close. Many were demolished. A few became ski resorts or hotels. And we're instructed to go find apartments in town so we could continue to get well. And all of a sudden I realized, I can overcome it and live a long, healthy, hardworking life.
Sherwood Davies : I had looked back at the family's history of tuberculosis and said how lucky I was. And when they said I was essentially cured, I was elated. I wasn't thinking so much of a big relief on my part, but what my mother had gone through because here she was, she had dealt with her mother, she had dealt with my father, and now she had to deal with me. I think the proudest thing in her life was when she came to my college graduation.
And she-- her life was fulfilled. Narrator : In November , a former professional baseball player named Larry Doyle ate his last meal at the head of a long table at the Trudeau Sanatorium. He had been a patient for 12 years. After lunch, he walked out the front door and strolled through the snowy streets of Saranac Lake. He was the last tuberculosis patient to leave Trudeau. Slate : In the s, tuberculosis in the U. By the dawn of the 19th century tuberculosis had killed one in seven of all the people who had ever lived.
Starting in the s, health-seekers fanned out across the United States in search for "the cure. As the scientific knowledge of tuberculosis progressed, the prejudice towards people with the disease eased. As tuberculosis plagued the nation, towns like Los Angeles and Denver grew as health-seekers traveled west to climates that promised to cure.
The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce published a journal called The Land of Sunshine , filled with testimonials to the healing powers of the California climate. Read two testimonials here. Shorter hemlines. Reclining chairs. Explore some surprising outcomes of tuberculosis. By the dawn of the 19th century, tuberculosis had killed one in seven of all people that had ever lived.
Browse images of America's fight against the deadly disease. Film Description By the dawn of the 19th century, the deadliest killer in human history, tuberculosis, had killed one in seven of all the people who had ever lived. Film for American Experience. Transcript Sherwood Davies : I can remember exactly where I was when my mother told me my father had died. The ancient Greeks called it "consumption. Narrator : Schatz talked Waksman into letting him proceed. Since then, drug-resistant TB has become more common.
There are nearly 10, TB cases in the U. More Ways to Watch. Features Trailer The Forgotten Plague: Trailer By the dawn of the 19th century tuberculosis had killed one in seven of all the people who had ever lived.
Clip The Climate Cure As tuberculosis plagued the nation, towns like Los Angeles and Denver grew as health-seekers traveled west to climates that promised to cure. Image Gallery TB in America: By the dawn of the 19th century, tuberculosis had killed one in seven of all people that had ever lived. If you are big into the study of diseases, science, or history there are bits and pieces for you here.
If you enjoy all three subjects? Then you might geek out on this book, just as I did. May 15, Catherine Austen rated it it was amazing Shelves: non-fiction. This book reads like a thriller. Very well-written. Highly recommended. Jan 03, Debbie Stoufer rated it it was amazing Shelves: non-fiction , public-health. This is a fascinating book full of very human researchers struggling to combat the nearly unbeatable enemy TB. I haven't taken a science course in - let's just say a long time - and I had to look up some terminology, but it was like reading a thriller.
Jan 30, Kathleen rated it really liked it. How human politics and circumstances help create important medical breakthroughs and how tuberculosis is such a long plague on mankind.
Apr 25, Judy rated it it was amazing. Ths history of trying to find treatment for tuberculosis is laid out in this extremely fascinating book. I am still convinced that, barring nuclear war, TB will be the killer of mankind. Dec 12, Lisa Eirene rated it liked it. Quite interesting read. I didn't know a lot of this stuff so it was fun to learn about it. Troy Skwor rated it really liked it Oct 21, Jose rated it really liked it Jun 17, Colleen Coffin rated it it was amazing Apr 18, Robert rated it it was amazing Nov 19, Jacquelyn rated it really liked it Nov 30, Johann Manstein rated it really liked it Jul 10, Emily rated it liked it Aug 31, Apr 15, Susan added it.
Long ago. Only commen it "good" Long ago. Only commen it "good" Tao L rated it it was amazing Jan 07, Lisa Harriman rated it it was amazing Dec 07, Zara rated it really liked it Jun 01, Lynne rated it liked it Apr 28, Readers also enjoyed.
About Frank Ryan. Frank Ryan. Frank Ryan is a consultant physician in the UK as well as being an innovative evolutionary biologist, who has introduced the concepts of aggressive symbiosis to virology, and the concepts of genomic creativity and the holobiontic human genome to the story of human evolution.
His major scientific interest has been the pioneering and development of the concept of viruses as symbionts, thus bringing Frank Ryan is a consultant physician in the UK as well as being an innovative evolutionary biologist, who has introduced the concepts of aggressive symbiosis to virology, and the concepts of genomic creativity and the holobiontic human genome to the story of human evolution.
His major scientific interest has been the pioneering and development of the concept of viruses as symbionts, thus bringing together the disciplines of evolutionary virology and symbiology. He has a major interest in the evolution of the human genome and the implications this has for medicine. World in Action and Horizon based programs on Frank's books. Frank's books have also been the subject of TV and radio documentaries and have been translated into many languages.
He is also an occasional reviewer of books for the New York Times. He is an entertaining speaker, which has helped to make him popular with the live media, professional colleagues and lay audiences alike. Books by Frank Ryan. When Dana Schwartz started writing about a 19th-century pandemic ravaging Edinburgh in her latest book, Anatomy: A Love Story, she had no idea Read more Trivia About The Forgotten Pla Welcome back.
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